In the operation of a typical agricultural combine that employs a threshing rotor, the flow of crop residue, sometimes referred to as material other than grain (MOG), remaining after threshing is typically discharged into a crop residue treatment and distribution system for treatment thereby and for ultimate distribution onto or over a field. Straw and residue chopper assemblies and residue spreader assemblies of various types and constructions have long been in use in or with such residue treatment and distribution systems. Such assemblies have operated to chop or pulverize the crop residue resulting from a harvesting operation into finer pieces and/or to spread the resulting crop residue, whether chopped into finer pieces by operation of a chopper assembly or passed to the spreader assembly as larger pieces of residue, onto and over the field. While such chopper and residue spreader assemblies have taken various forms, depending upon the desires of users and manufacturers, they may sometimes be identified as being of certain general types.
Many typical harvesters have traditionally employed technology and methods that have become associated with what is sometimes referred to as hood-mount choppers. Generally, such hood-mount choppers can be described as flail choppers, and the systems of which they are a part have evolved to the point that they may include over 100 flail knives on a rotating chopper, mounted within a dedicated housing that provides an appropriate environment for the operation of the rotating chopper so as to best maximize its performance. The rotating chopper of such a residue management system may often operate at or above 3000 RPM and provide suitable and sufficient energy to the chopped material to be able to effect a spread of the chopped material over a width of up to 40 feet, which width generally corresponds to the cut width of the header. Such a residue management system is thus operable for its intended purpose of chopping and spreading the chopped material over a field, and generally operates effectively in such regard. With such a system, if a user does not desire to chop the straw, he may turn the chopper off and bypass, or route the material flow around, the chopper.
Alternative technology, the primary purpose of which has been the transport of material away from the threshing system, has utilized a multifaceted construction that affords greater versatility in the transport of such material in that such material can not only be transported, but can also be treated in varying manners dependent upon the desires of operators. Such constructions have come to be known as integral choppers or integral chopper or chopping systems due to the integration of a chopping function, in addition to the primary transport function, into the combine and its operations. Such integral chopper systems, because of their positioning within the combine and their functional capabilities, offer versatility not generally available with the hood-mounted chopper systems.
Such integral chopper systems have been so designed that, as noted hereinabove, their primary function is the transport of material away from the threshing system and a secondary function is the treatment of such material as it is being so transported. Such operations are usually effected in one of two different ways. Most commonly, the integral chopper system is operated to transport the material from the threshing system to a spreading system as a rotary element or portion rotates at or near 3000 RPM so as to quickly move the material rearward and to also chop it into smaller pieces as it is being so transported. Less commonly, the integral chopper system is operated to more gently transport the material from the threshing system to a spreading system as the rotary element operates at a much slower speed, typically at only about 800 RPM, with considerably less chopping activity.
The rotary element in either chopper system has a multitude of bolted elements serving function on or about the chopper element. Due to wear or foreign object ingestion, these functional elements can often be broken, damaged, or lost. Loss of mass from the rotating element causes imbalance during operation. Due to the critical timing of harvest and the relative location of parts to replace the damaged components, operation is demanded and continued. Under extended periods of operation with imbalance, severe chassis and component damage can occur.
What is needed is a device for a rotary element in a combine that may re-configure weight and offset load on or about the chopper element to return balance to the chopper element to remove undesired imbalance and vibrations during operation. This would minimize the possibility of structural failure and/or damage to the rotary element and/or combine.